Royal Corps of Signals.
Dud's
Army
Chapter
3
Excursions
Days accumulated into weeks. There was no leave, not for nig-nogs. It was all work and no play and being a dull boy mattered not to the Army. Somehow I got landed with an extra duty, each morning being admitted to the NCO’s room next door to make up one of the corporal’s beds. It was not much of a duty except for the puffing up of the pillows, the covers of which were stained from the blood and pus excreted overnight from the profusion of actively-volcanic boils spotting the corporals neck and face.
We were drilled in all weathers, mornings and afternoons. When it rained we moved into one of the drill sheds. There was no let-up. Between supper and lights-out when not cleaning and polishing our kit we could visit the NAAFI, there being many of these institutional outlets all over Catterick. Ours was specifically placed for nig-nogs and was consequently of spare design. It was housed in a cavernous space bereft of comfort or stimulation. One might order there a pallid egg, a spoons worth of ever-so-baked beans and a shovel of greasy chips, served on a cold plate and negotiated with bendable forks. By way of shopping one could purchase toothpaste, boot polish, yellow dusters, shoe brushes, tooth brushes, razor blades, Brasso, Blanco and Cadbury’s chocolate. Blanco, mixed with water, formed a slimy green paste one brushed onto one’s webbing. It was said to be manufactured by a member of the British aristocracy which made its purchase and application doubly offensive.
The staff at this NAAFI were a wan, lurking, dispirited lot, haunting their caravansary with neither zest nor zeal. The brightest sound to be heard there was the jingle of the cash register bell, ringing out each time our money went in. The place was managed, one supposed, by a retired undertaker.
Every evening required preparation for the next day. To appear on morning parade in less than perfect nick was certain to invoke the corporal’s wrath and some hours of cookhouse fatigues by way of a punishment. So, each night, metals were brassoed to a deep shine and webbing blancoed to an apple-green. Boots required hours of attention, the toes expected to look like ebony billiard balls. This effect required, literally, spit and polish, and only a yellow duster would serve the latter application, administered over a finger tip’s area at a time. Once one’s yellow duster started looking like a trophy tiger skin it was time to buy a new one. The bulbous toe caps not only appeared ridiculous but were fragile in the extreme, their surface-shine zealously protected as we went pussy-footing about. As we sat around our room and attended these chores we could at least shoot the breeze.
Constituting a mosaic of sub-cultures we were genuinely interested in each other. Being of the working class my time hitherto had been focussed on earning a living. This meant being at work forty-four hours a week, Monday to Saturday noon. We got two days off at Christmas and one at Easter. We clocked in an hour later on New Year’s Day. The big holiday event through the year was two weeks off, with pay, which latter came as cash in a brown envelope. We lined up for pay each Friday after clocking off and until I was out of my teens I was expected to hand over each pay envelope to my mother, unopened.
Such a regime keeps a body close to home. Most of us grew from boyhood to manhood scarcely going anywhere of note. Those of us who had seen the world had managed this by joining the Merchant Navy, for example, so it was from an ex-radio operator I learned what a good job that was for going foreign. From a Liverpudlian able-seaman I was earnestly advised never to ship aboard a banana boat, discovering the reason for myself years later when unloading one, its cargo infested by tarantulas. For the sake of the talk and stories I came by while applying the nightly polishes I was more than content to forego trips to the NAAFI. My Army mates came from all parts of Britain, and this fact alone caused me sit up and take notice.
With the first traumatic weeks of training at the back of us we were deemed safe enough to venture beyond camp boundaries. We were to go on a route march. I supposed this would be a full kit and rifle affair slogging through the bogs but I was mistaken. We were to assemble in white undershirt, blue shorts, khaki socks and black boots, and march about the country lanes. I was horrified. I was cursed with an odd sort of a physique of which I was neurotically ashamed. I was tall, due to my legs being disproportionately long. In the privacy of my head, in my consulting room, so to speak, my conscience nagged at me that my height was a fraud; by rights I was not tall at all. I was a short man on long legs. And these legs were thin. No matter that I could power a soccer or rugby ball, left or right footed with unusual force and accuracy, the shape and length of my legs was my secret despair. They were like leather strops with knobs on.
Terry, my closest friend since I was fifteen, knew of my self-loathing. He and I, at the same time during the latter year of our apprenticeship, had suddenly put on a growth spurt, shooting upwards and thereby both becoming encumbered by these painfully-embarrassing, gangling extensions, our legs. Being keen on racing cycling our legs came constantly and annoyingly into general view. In our distress we turned to Charles Atlas, patron saint of adolescents afflicted with the widely advertised nine-stone-weakling syndrome. Since we split the cost of the course fifty-fifty, we divided the pale-blue, instruction pamphlets in the same proportion. I drew the upper body and Terry the lower, pooling the chapters on nutrition. Terry’s legs improved as did the size of my chest, but along came National Service and we each got stuck in a developmental limbo. Stripped off I did not look good. With my thistle hair-do, sleeveless vest, baggy blue shorts and bulbous-toed boots I looked bizarre. I considered going AWOL, but the escape promised a more harrowing ordeal than the march, which would at least be mercifully short.
Thus attired we were tramped off into the countryside, arms and legs going like pink, knobbly pistons. Through villages, past post offices, around corner shops, skirting churches and ploughing past pubs. Being the squad’s corner marker allowed me no place to hide. I suffered the mockery of small boys, giggling girls, dogs, old men and dowdy housewives in jaw-dropped mid-sentence at their neighbour-in-curlers’ next-door gates. I had heard the expression ‘praying for the ground to swallow one up’ but had never given it the credit of being literally true. I prayed to God for such a swallowing but he wanted none of it. So I cursed the Army with a ferocity that gave me pins and needles; and that was that.
Our next excursion took us to the shooting range for exercises with the Sten gun. The Sten is a weapon of romantic associations. Film stars as famous as John Wayne and Alan Ladd have shot regiments of Germans and even won wars with it. The gun interested me from the point of it being something of an engineering marvel, employing a portion of the exploding bullet’s energy to effect recoil, and made so simply as to cost no more than ten shillings to manufacture. The first Sten-lesson one learns is how to hold it. This the corporal demonstrated and then walked around to see if we could do it. I could not, and so got paraded about as a living example of nig-nog stupidity, demonstrating to the others, with chilling certainty, how one’s finger ends could be chopped off; I had one of mine curled into the detonating chamber.
We were advised that at the firing range we would approach the target and then, at the designated distance, fire five rounds from the standing-up position. There would be a second man at our backs whose business it was to knock us down should we forget the live rounds in the gun‘s magazine and inadvertently turn about to ask some fool, nig-nog question, thereby bringing the entire shooting party into one‘s line of fire. Any move like this and we would be instantly knocked to the ground. But this secondary duty was not enlarged upon. We were not advised on how best to knock a man carrying a loaded Sten gun down, or given a weapon, like say a Billy-Knocker, to do one’s knocking down with. My imagination fastened more onto this problem rather than on the shooting of the gun. The main difficulty, as I saw it, was that not being experienced at knocking a man down from behind, hitherto considered an unsporting gesture, one stood a good chance of either getting shot, or getting knocked about oneself, or both. A lot of blokes do not like getting knocked down from behind and were likely to take umbrage.
So off we went to shoot the Sten. Sure enough, in the midst of the excitement of liberating bursts of live Sten gun bullets one of our number did turn around, or half turn around, it was difficult to tell as everything that followed happened very quickly. The man behind the shooter, instead of knocking his charge to the ground dove himself to the ground, in the opposite direction to the arc being proscribed by the loaded gun., the rest of us following suit in all directions irrespective of safety quadrants. The corporal however, roared “Eyes front you bloody nig-nog” at the offending man so fiercely, the nig-nog had the order obeyed before the last of us had taken cover. This moment illustrated for me the Army’s need to have orders obeyed on the instant, and was clearly worthy of inclusion in the training manual.
I got to fire the Sten alright, preserving my finger-ends and actually hitting the target. There was no fun in it for me and I was glad when it was over. I gave no reason to be knocked down and got no call to do it unto others. At the end of the shooting came a ritual. We were lined up in a single line, front face, and the officer then walked this line, pausing momentarily before each man and lifting a condescending eyebrow at him. Once this signal was received the man was obliged to declare:
"I have no live rounds or empty shells in my possession, Sir."
This litany was repeated ad nauseum down the line to the very last man, a bloke from Plymouth, who unlike the rest of us, cheerfully reported that while he had no live rounds he did have "… a bloody gurt bag 'v empty shellz-Zurr.” A sigh of contentment soughed along the line. The officer’s eyelids fluttered, he coughed behind white fingers and shakily bid the corporal to carry on.
Towards the end of our third week of Basic training we were marched to a distant barrack hut, which, on entering, we found full of desks and set out as for a written examination, the pale-green exam booklets already distributed, one to each desk. On the cover of the exam book was a place to write one’s name and Army number, which once seated we were advised to set down with the pencil provided. Across the front of the of the booklet was printed “Sample Question” which in fact was not a question at all but an order. This latter read "Complete the following series: 1,2,3, ".Following the three numbers lay a space as for a fourth number.
"Right" said the corporal-in-charge, a brainy looking fellow wearing glasses and standing not three feet from my desk. He beamed at the class. His shoulder insignia proclaimed him to be of the Intelligence Corps.
"Pay attention. You see before you a test. It's designed to help place you in jobs you are best suited for, once Basic Training is completed which will not be long now."
At this some sounds of general approval were heard from the back, which he heard right, enough but ignored.
"You are to attempt all questions and you have strictly one hour to do them in. After that, pencils down."
Some groans were now heard from the back of the class, which he seized on.
"No need to panic," urged the intelligent one, "Look at the first question, printed on the cover. What could be easier?!"
I'd already been looking at it and it looked like a tricky bugger to me. The three numbers, 1,2,3, were underscored by a dotted line which continued past the third number thereby creating a space for the answer to be written above the dots. But the problem for me was that the three numbers preceding the space were underscored by seven dots and the space for an answer by three dots. I could not make any sense of it. To me, the question, if stated fully, read: If three numbers in linear sequence, each followed by a comma are underlined by seven dots, what number or numbers must sequentially follow if the space allotted to your answer is underlined by three dots? I was buggered. It didn’t make sense. There was no other answer space where one might explain one’s difficulty. I started to sweat and loosen my collar. I was going red. Was it a trick thing? To catch out the …I noticed the intelligent one looking at me strangely.
"So what is the answer?" he asked, dragging his eyes reluctantly away from me and addressing the class. His manner was that of a dopey uncle.
"One, two, three, ...?"
"Four!" roared the class together, together, that is, except for me.
"Four." confirmed the intelligent one, looking back at me.
"Now that wasn't so bad, was it. Off you go".
The intelligent one was behind me, reading my name off my paper before I could turn it over. I was fuming, angry at my stupidity and at the world around me. I was angry at the dopey uncle. Why did he read my name? I got a dark flash of memory.
I remembered the day I sat the scholarship for going to grammar school. I came in to the exam room hot, bruised and ruffled from a playground fight with a boy from the next village. Ringed around by the other boys we’d been going at it hammer and tongs, and had reached the rolling-in-the-gravel stage when the bell to come in had been rung. In a flushed and dishevelled state I sat me down to attend the mathematics exam. Still in a fighting mood I started ripping into it, going along in fine style as one of the two attending teachers stopped at the back of me to see what I was making of it. I gritted my teeth at his being there but carried on regardless. He made some sort of a snorting noise, and then went immediately to his partner standing at the front of the class and whispered into his ear. With the message conspiratorially delivered they both raised their eyebrows at each other, chortled in unison and then turned to regard me with a mixture of pity and amusement as though my very sitting there constituted an impudence of false hopes.
I opened the Army’s pale-green examination paper and checked out the first page of questions, and then the next, and the next. It was a cinch. I went through the booklet like a hot knife through butter, momentarily forgetting everything for the fun of whipping through the puzzles. I had my pencil down within half an hour. But then my dark mood returned and I spent the remainder of the time cursing the Army. I had one year, eleven months and one week to go.
.